


21 Summers After Her

by darkofthemorning



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Friendship/Love, Future Fic, Heartbreak, Love, Sorry Not Sorry, The 21 Summer fic that needed to be written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 18:45:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16897962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkofthemorning/pseuds/darkofthemorning
Summary: It's been 21 years, but he still remembers her fierce green eyes and playful laugh like the back of his hand.21 years of laughs, friendship, triumphs, and pain ended in the blink of an eye, and the 21 years since that ending flew so quickly by. He has questions, but will never be granted answers. There are so many things he wish he told her,but it's too late.





	21 Summers After Her

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first fic! I based this off of a Tumblr post I saw circulating Twitter after Nashville (I can't remember whose post it was, but thank you for the inspiration! If you know who it was or if it was you and you want credit, let me know!) but also added a bit of my own imagination in it. Get ready to bust open a bottle of wine because you might need it after this.

It’s been 21 years.

21 autumns.

21 winters. 

21 springs. 

21 summers. 

21 years since he last saw her porcelain skin, smooth as china.

21 years since his hands last felt that dip in her back, at the bottom of her spine.

21 years since he last lay his head in that spot between her jaw and collarbone, the place he craved to rest his head forever.

21 years since he saw those eyes, blazing green, rimmed with salty tears as she drove away, out of his life, never to return. 

21 years. A long time. 

He still thought about her every so often, despite a wife and children of his own, who he did love dearly. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. 

Even at age 52, he didn’t feel so old. He thinks it may be his active lifestyle to thank (he still goes to the gym a few times a week, usually following up with a quick skate at the rink near his home), or his 13- and 16-year-old boys who drag him out to the rink for a little game of hockey every week, or his little princess, who isn’t so little anymore, teaching him how to be a “cool dad,” or maybe it’s his wife’s jokes that send the home into a roar of laughter every night at the dinner table.

He considers himself content with the way his life turned out, his gratefulness for this family he has been gifted too large to measure on a comprehensible scale. 

But every so often, especially in the darkest nights where the silence threatened to swallow him whole, his mind wandered to her, and even his wife’s snores beside him in their king-sized bed were nowhere near the booming volume needed to drown out these thoughts. 

He hasn’t spoken to her in 21 years.

Where was she? What was she doing? Did she get that CEO position she had always dreamed of, even during their skating careers, long before they ever stopped? Does she get to wear heels everyday, even those fuchsia ones he used to love? Does she still skate? Still twirl and spin and laugh in ones that threaten to fall apart at any moment? Was she married to a man who knew how to treat her right, better than he ever had? Did she have children of her own, ones who had her small ears and freckles and green eyes?

Was she happy?

Happy without him?

He thinks it’s selfish to believe that she still loves him, still needs him. She used to love him, that he knows, but it was different towards the end, when she had her own dreams but all he wanted was for her to be part of his. She broke his heart time and time again, but he knows exactly why.

He was holding her back from her dreams. 

And the thing about her is when she has her sights set on something, she doesn’t let anyone hold her back. Even if she has to fight alone, she will.

She’s done it before, in times where she needed him most. But he wasn’t there. He never was, until it was too late.

He should have known better. 

Maybe that’s why she realized she could never truly love someone like him, and why she had to leave even though he begged and pleaded and told her he loved her more than the Sun loves showering the Earth’s surface in hugs of warmth and light every single day.

She knew he would only let her down, only hold her back if she stayed. It wouldn’t be the first time he did so.

She was right to leave, though he wished she didn’t.

He would rather her be in his life and break his heart time and time again than have her gone like this, without any knowledge of her wellbeing.

He remembers the car she drove away in, a sleek, navy Chevrolet. It was the same colour of that blouse he loved on her oh so much, the one that brought out a certain softness in her eyes, the one that he loved to take off at midnight after competitions when they hurried to his hotel room because they didn’t want anyone to see that the passion between them was too intense to repress any longer.

He was never one to care for colours. He only knew six: red, yellow, orange, blue, green, and violet. But that blue, that damned blue the colour of the sky just before the sun begins to rise, the colour of the middle of the ocean, was one that he would always remember. There was no name for it, or at least none that he knew, so he named it after her. 

Though he had never seen that colour blue before her, it seems to be plastered everywhere now that she was gone: on a billboard, the Jeopardy host’s tie, his children’s eyes. 

Even 21 years later, the colour always brings him back to her.

She was never one for karaoke, usually the girl who would never be caught dead singing in front of a crowd and would much rather just be on the sidelines clapping for her friends. Not many ever got to hear her sing, but he did. Oh, what he would do to hear her sing again. He had to admit, she was no Whitney or Gaga, but instead had a voice like the creak of the boardwalk under your feet during the summer, or that first sip of tea after a long day. Her voice was a comforting one. When he heard her soft falsettos from the shower while waiting for her those early mornings before practice or the whispers of her favourite songs on long drives, it brought a shiver to his spine; not one of discomfort, but one of gratefulness, one of such appreciation that he had the honour of hearing that voice.

He always tried to get her to sing a little louder, a little prouder, but she was too shy. It wasn’t until that 21st summer together that he finally got her to sing. It was on the drive home to Ilderton, on the way to the event they were throwing for the community that supported them throughout their career together. It must have been the pride, or maybe the joy surrounding that day, but when he put on her favourite Hall and Oates song, he was not greeted with the usual soft murmurs of the melody, but instead a full-on belting of the lyrics he had grown to memorize like the back of his hand from the countless times she had played it for him: on the way to the airport, out shopping, while cooking in her kitchen, on Skype, or simply lying in bed. He may have even grown to love the song, just because it reminded him of her. He never admitted any of this to her. He never got the opportunity to. And he never would.

It wasn’t a popular song, one that plays on the old rock radio stations or at weddings or large events. The only time he ever heard it was when she played it for him. But after her, the song was suddenly everywhere. Lyrics used in a coffee commercial, his son claiming it was his favourite song, a talk-show host playing it in the background.

Even 21 years later, the song always brings him back to her.

Throughout their 21 years together, they were like the glue holding each other’s lives together. She knew all of his secrets, and he knew all of hers. It wasn’t always this way, though; they hit many rough patches, all resulting from their stubbornness and reluctance to open up to each other. After 2014, they promised they’d never keep secrets from each other again. They lost so much that year, and almost lost each other, not talking for months.

So, they promised. After that moment, he realized he knew nothing about the girl who was by his side through it all. He learned about all of the storms she wanted to chase and all of the dreams she wanted to dream and all of the things she wanted to achieve once they retired. She wanted to be prepared, to busy herself to fill the void that leaving the sport would create, though she knew that nothing would ever be able to give her those same feelings she felt out on the ice. He realized, for the first time since before her first surgery, that there was truly hope in her eyes. A genuine hope, a hope that everything will turn out right in the end. That she’ll fulfill everything she ever wanted to. And for the first time, he supported her. He was her biggest fan, cheering her on at the sidelines even when he was battling his own demons.

Even 21 years later, he hopes everything did turn out for her. That she did fulfil everything she wanted to. Even when he stopped showing up at the sidelines, and his cheers faded away.

He remembers vividly the night he first told her he loved her, and she said it back. His heart was beating so rapidly in his chest, he was scared she could hear it and would get too scared and run away.

But she stayed.

She had just turned seventeen, and he was eighteen. He invited her up to his family’s new cottage, a cute little thing backed onto a lake that reflected the scenery around it. He brought her out back to the dock the first night, covering her eyes and carelessly maneuvering her out to the edge to show her the sight he loved oh so much: the countless stars scattered throughout the night sky, surrounding dark pines, and bright, white moon, reflected as a crystal-clear image into the lake. He’ll never forget the way her green eyes softened as she gasped and brought her hands up to her mouth, taking in the scene that seemed too beautiful to be real. 

He kissed her there, their first kiss, and she kissed him too. It was a slow, sensual kiss; a kiss between two people who did truly care for each other. It was one of the best kisses he ever experienced.

When he brought her back inside, he remembers that she kissed him again, but the innocence of the kiss was gone, replaced with a hunger, a desire, a want. He remembers the way she slid off her cut off jeans as though she had done it a million times before, in a slow, teasing way that was still so smooth, even though he knew it was her first time too. He remembers the way her eyes burned with passion, and the way she guided him to calm his nerves, to reassure him he was doing everything right. He had no idea how she knew what to do, but he didn’t question it.

Later on that night, lying in his bed, cocooned in the covers in the darkness, was when he told her he loved her. There was a long silence, and he was unsure if he had just screwed everything up or if she had fallen asleep. But then he he heard that soft giggle, oh, that giggle that made his stomach flutter, and she twisted around to look at him. A small smile played at the corner of her lips, God, she was such a tease. And then she said it back. That night was the best night of his life.

He remembers their first fight, back in the summer of 2008, on a stormy evening by the lake, the waves angrily crashing against the boardwalk as rain fell, wind blowing the drops in a frenzy. It was a few months after her first surgery, the one which was supposed to fix her shins to ease the pain that he saw too often flash in her eyes during practices. When she left, he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with himself. Without her, it was as though his whole world was gone, that sunshine that always brightened his day only left behind clouds, that north star in the sky that guided him nowhere to be found. So, he kept himself occupied, in some ways that were good, and some ways he regrets. He kept himself too occupied, however, and forgot about the reason he needed to do so in the first place. He never called, she cried. Why hadn’t he called? Why did he never have the decency to pick up a goddamned phone and call her and see how she was doing? She thought he hated her, that he hated her because she couldn’t skate as well anymore, because she couldn’t get through a whole program without needing to stop because the shooting fire in her legs was unbearable, that he left her without explanation for someone else because she wasn’t around. He knew none of this was true, that he never stopped thinking about her, never found a new partner, insisted on practicing with sandbags, anything but replace her. But the words never left his mouth, instead resting on the tip of his tongue. Even though he fought, fought so hard to say these things to her, he couldn’t. He was silent, a fool. He remembers the way the tears formed in her eyes, flowing down her freckled cheeks along with the rain, as she pleaded him to give her an explanation. 

But it never came.

And he remembers the way she turned away from him, disappointment in her eyes, wet hair blowing in the stormy breeze. She walked, and walked, and walked away from him, until she was completely out of his sight.

Not once did he call after her.

It was the first time he had let her down, and nowhere near the last.

It was that summer that he vowed to become a better man. One who would be there for his best friend when she needed him most. One that would work hard and put his all into everything he did. One who would invest in his emotional intelligence, for the first time in his whole life. Back then, he thought he checked off all of these boxes, fulfilled every single one of these goals as quickly as the snap of his fingers. But he would later come to realize that it wasn’t that easy. It would take years for him to better himself, and by the time he would do it, she would not be around to see it.

The last time he looked in those green eyes, they were reddened with hours of tears. 

He always loved her eyes, such a fiercely bright green that seemed impossible to be real. 

But then again, this was a girl so perfect, she seemed impossible to be real.

He loved the way the shade of green changed with her feelings, how he could tell when she was happy or sad or angry just by those eyes.

But he especially loved that when those eyes caught the light just right, they turned into a translucent jade colour he only ever found in her. He loved that colour, though it sometimes scared him, the way that colour would tug at something so deep in his soul that he could never quite put his finger on. He thinks that maybe it scared him, how much he loved those eyes and the girl who they belonged to. But every so often, he would take her by the hands and drag her towards the window, repositioning her body until the light hit her eyes in just that right way that produced that very specific jade. In the beginning, she would laugh at him, a laugh the sound of cotton candy melting on your tongue or fresh baked cookies, a laugh he loved to hear so much. But eventually, she learned his reasoning, allowing him to do what he wanted to her. Towards the end, he remembers how the happiness in her eyes slipped away when he brought her towards the light, how he was confused because that beautiful jade green he used to be able to so easily find was impossible to create, no matter how he moved her head. He should have known then.

He never has been able to recreate that jade green, nor been able to find it anywhere again. That green was the only thing that was precisely unique to her, one of the only memories of her that hasn’t trickled into his tangible reality. He will only ever have the memory of that green, one he knows is ever-changing as he ages, the colour shifting and fading into the corners of his mind.

As much as he never wants to forget her eyes, that smile, her candy-sweet laugh, that navy blouse, that night on the lake, and hell, even that fight in the storm, he knows the time will come; there’s no use in fighting the inevitable.

All he can do is hope that those gorgeous green eyes still hold those same hopes and dreams they did, 21 summers ago.

He knows that she made a man of him, that their time together reshaped and moulded and manipulated and broke and mended him back together into a man that was so different than the one he once was. 

He wishes he could tell her he was sorry, that she was the one stuck with fixing him all the time when he didn’t even deserve to be fixed. He knew she was too good for him, that she was worthy of so much more. But she stuck around for 21 years, until she finally realized what he had known all along.

He wishes he could thank her, for if it wasn’t for her, he would still be that selfish, snobby, narcissistic boy who thought the world owed him everything. If it wasn’t for her, he never would have met his wife, and he never would have welcomed his three beautiful children into the world.

He wishes he could hug her again, a long hug like the ones they used to do before they performed. He wants to hug her and tell her that even after all this time, he still thinks about her from time to time, and still cares for her. He wants to show her the progress he’s made, the way he’s learned from his past and is raising his children to not make the same mistakes he did; the mistakes he made with her.

But as much as he wishes, he knows he’ll never be granted them.

He knows it’s too late.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Twitter @HeyVirtueMoir!
> 
> Plus feel free to DM me feedback or any ideas you have lingering in your mind that you'd like to have written. I'm always open to chatting with new people :)


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